This 57,000-Year-Old Wolf Pup From Yukon Is The 'Most Complete' Wolf Mummy Yet

The 57,000-year-old wolf puppy discovered in Canada may just be one of the best wolf mummies yet, and a warming world may lead to more such discoveries.

Golden Discovery

It was in 2016 when the mummified remains of an ancient wolf were discovered in the Klondike goldfields in Yukon, Canada, the researchers of a new study said. Named Zhùr by the local Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in people, the pup was perfectly preserved in Canadian permafrost when she was discovered by a gold miner, a news release from Cell Press reported.

"Zhùr is the most complete specimen of a mummified Pleistocene gray wolf known," the researchers wrote in their study, in which they detailed the young wolf's characteristics and short life. "Zhùr's preservation is exceptional, from the papillae on her lips to her skin and fur."

Zhùr is quite small at just 417 millimeters and 670 grams, and her teeth and female genitalia were also still present and preserved. Genetic analysis also showed that Zhùr is actually a descendant of ancient Russian gray wolves and that she is also related to modern-day wolves.

Zhùr's Life And Death

Despite their analysis showing that Zhùr was merely six or seven weeks old when she died, the researchers were still able to determine a little about Zhùr's lifestyle. According to the researchers, there has been evidence that modern wolves get their diet from aquatic sources such as salmon. Such could also be the case for Zhùr and, by proxy, her mother, because of how she lived close to the water.

As for how the pup died, it's likely that it was a pretty quick death. As the study's first author Julie Meachen of Des Moines University explained in the Cell Press news release, animals that end up preserved in permafrost must have died there and have gotten buried fast. Otherwise, the body would have decomposed or been eaten by the predators of the time.

In Zhùr's case, the researchers believe that she died inside the den, which then collapsed and entombed her in the permafrost for thousands of years.

"We think she was in her den and died instantaneously by den collapse," Meachen said in the Cell Press news release. "Our data showed that she didn't starve and was about 7 weeks old when she died, so we feel a bit better knowing the poor little girl didn't suffer for too long."

More Finds In A Warming World

The researchers noted that while mummified large animals are rather rarely found in Alaska and Yukon, Zhùr's case suggests a higher possibility for smaller animals that lived in dens to be mummified. And with the warmer global temperatures causing the permafrost to melt, it's not impossible for more such preserved animals from thousands of years ago to be discovered.

"One small upside of climate change is that we're going to find more of these mummies as permafrost melts," Meachen said in the Cell Press news release. "That's a good way for science to reconstruct that time better, but it also shows us how much our planet is actually warming. We really need to be careful."

The study is published in Current Biology.